Paul Pressler Accused of Molestation in Lawsuit

The man whom many consider to be the architect of the conservative movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, Paul Pressler, has recently been named in a lawsuit claiming molestation over a period of decades. The complaint was filed nearly two months ago in Harris County, Texas by Gareld Duane Rollins, Jr., and media outlets have finally begun to call attention to it. Here is a screen shot of the first page of the 40 page petition, which also includes the named defendants.

According to a Baptist Pressarticle, it was 50 years ago (March 1967) that Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson had their infamous meeting in New Orleans at Cafe du Monde to discuss their mutual concerns about the liberal direction in which they believed the Southern Baptist Convention was heading. At the time, Patterson was a seminary student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Pressler was an attorney (he would be appointed to the bench in Texas three years later).

In his book A Hill on Which to Die: One Southern Baptist’s Journey, Pressler recounts how the conservative resurgence (takeover) of the Southern Baptist Convention occurred. He figured out how to bring about a theological shift in the denomination by the systematic appointment of like-minded Southern Baptists to key positions. The turning point occurred in June of 1979 when Adrian Rogers, a Memphis pastor, was elected SBC president.

Those individuals who played significant roles in the Southern Baptist Convention’s conservative resurgence takeover, are being immortalized in stained glass windows in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s new chapel – the J.W. MacForman Chapel and Performing Arts Center – which was dedicated six years ago.

The total number of stained glass windows that will adorn the chapel is expected to total 69. No doubt the images of SWBTS president Paige Patterson and his wife Dorothy will be featured prominently.

The stained glass window depicting Paul and Nancy Pressler was completed several years ago and has already been installed in the chapel.

The petition states in Item 3, page 4 that the victim was “a very religious child and remains very religious to this day”.

Further, the complaint includes a lengthy ‘HISTORY OF THE RESURGENCE’, which we may review at some point. One contention in the petition that really surprised us is that Patterson and Pressler are ‘closet Calvinists’. Interestingly, it appears that Pressler’s wife is a Presbyterian, which begs the question: how much influence has she had on her husband’s theological beliefs? As a Southern Baptist who was once a member of the same congregation as Paige and Dorothy Patterson, I (Deb) am perplexed by the claim that Patterson in particular is a “closet Calvinist’, and I definitely plan to do some research on the matter.

*** TRIGGER WARNING! ***

Here are screen shots from the petition that reveal the details of the alleged sexual abuse.

Steam baths and whirlpools? Over at Patheos, the Ponder Anew website included the following in a post published yesterday regarding Paul Pressler (see screen shot below):

Pray & Prey – was that the strategy?

Now let’s consider the following…

Prep School

Paul Pressler attended the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, matriculating in 1946 at the age of 16. He attended this boarding school for two years and graduated. In recent years there has been a rash of articles exposing the underbelly of prep schools, including Pressler’s alma mater. Just last March the following news story aired in Boston:

The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team has been digging into sexual abuse allegations regarding faculty members at Phillips Exeter, and they have published a number of articles on their findings. Here is a link to just one of those reports:

According to a news report from The New York Times, police sought to arrest two deans at Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite private boarding school, for failing “to report the alleged sexual assault of a student to the authorities.” But police were overruled by prosecutors.

The deans, Arthur Cosgrove and Melissa Mischke, were not removed from their positions or arrested for violating the state’s mandatory reporting law.

Has failure to report sexual assault been the modus operandi of Phillips Exeter for a long time? Given the serious accusations against Pressler, we are left wondering whether anything happened to him while at this boarding school?

Nomination to Head the Office of Government Ethics

Back in 1989, President Bush chose Paul Pressler to head up the Office of Government Ethics. After the FBI conducted a background check, Pressler’s name was removed from consideration. Here is a screen shot from a New York Timesarticle on the matter:

Over the years Pressler has given his own version of why he was not selected; however, we are left wondering about the ‘personal situation’ the FBI discovered.

2004 Lawsuit

According to an article in the Star-Telegram, Donald Shea (Rollins’ attorney) said that:

“Pressler previously settled with Rollins over a 2004 battery charge for an incident in a Dallas hotel room. That settlement is not public, Shea said, but reference is made to such an agreement in recent court filings.”

Finally, consider the following information, which was included in the complaint:

What are we to make of Pressler’s repeated intervention on Duane’s Rollins’ behalf?

Attorney’s Statement on Behalf of Paul Pressler

As we would expect, Paul Pressler’s attorney, Ted Tredennick, brought up Rollins’ criminal record, which reveals arrests on DUIs and other charges over the last several decades.

“Mr. Rollins is clearly a deeply troubled man, with a track record of multiple felonies and incarceration, and it is the height of irresponsibility that anyone would present such a bizarre and frivolous case — much less report on it.”

If what Rollins alleged happened in the complaint really occurred, there is no question that he would be a deeply troubled man. The fact that he has a criminal past only strengthens his case as far was we’re concerned.

We will be following this story closely and will be posting an update next week.

Funny thing noises, I remember noises quite well, med carts come to mine. The first time I heard a med cart I was laying face down on a gurney on the makeshift burn unit at the hospital my neighbor drove us to back in Christmas of 66. I remember the ride to the hospital, actually I remember my brother telling me the story of the three bears when I was in the back bathroom bathtub with all that skin floating up in the tub. I remember the debriding of my wounds in the ER and the cutting away of skin. Most “normal” kids would have blacked out or gone into shock, being the failure I am I did not. After I joined the faithful force I applied my spiritual knowledge to my past traumatic event and determined that the reason I did not go into shock or pass out is that I wanted to get info on how to get people to feel sorry for me and get attention. My sister reminded me of what my brother said to me when my pajamas caught on fire “Yoe are on fire you dork”, you would have to understand our family to get why that is ironic and funny.

I often tried to garner some type of spiritual insight from my childhood issues, but not being part of the apologetic, branded, or part of the machine, I was just feeling sorry for myself and I need to repent of being a human being. That I get on steroids. The last place to bring up spiritual issues is at church, it did not make much sense to me then, now it is SOP. Not being much of a regenerate true believer I look back over this, it made me a better teacher and in some ways a better brother, son, and uncle. For that payback, a very small price to pay, if even. Sometimes stuff just happens and we do with it what we can.

Disney music executive charged with child sexual abuse was on worship staff of Gospel Coalition church:

Jon Heely, arrested last month in Santa Clarita, Calif., is charged with abusing two girls a decade ago. Back in 2008, he was on the worship ministry staff of Grace Baptist Church Santa Clarita, working with its Living Proof youth choir ministry:

Grace Baptist, a Gospel Coalition church in the same city as The Master’s University, is the church home of many of the school’s students, professors, and alumni — TMU President John MacArthur’s Grace Community church is located 15-20 miles away in Sun Valley.

Jon Heely was featured singer in the finale of the church’s Christmas program last year:

A familiar top-order collapse from England formed the latest round of the Pomnishambles; a minor recovery (that may forestall an innings defeat) notwithstanding, Australia will regain the Ashes in the next couple of days.

I lived in Houston, and am not surprised. All the evil in the world is painted over there with a thin veneer of Baptist piety. I wonder, though, if anyone has done research on whether there is a statistically significant increase in sexual misconduct in conservative versus liberal churches.

Many of us who now feel dis-enfranchised from the SBC denomination after the “Conservative Resurgence” concluded while the process was taking place that it was nothing more than a partisan political maneuver to take control and power over the various institutions and resources. Buzz words such as “liberal” and “inerrant” were used to divide an organization that had been built on putting aside minor differences to cooperate in broader missions. Attempts at compromise, i.e. a Peace Committee, appeared insincere (my pastor at the time was on it). People who invested their resources and lives into the denomination ended up on the outside, looking in.

It was under a cloak of principles and ideals that these politically savvy opportunists ceased control of the denomination. With this in mind, it is significant to note that one of the chief architects of this movement, Pressler, may have been fundamentally as morally reprehensible as they come. While I would want to hope that Pressler and Patterson were acting in good faith for the betterment of the denomination, this news reinforces my opinion that that was probably not the case.

Pressler — who helped engineer a strategy to turn the Southern Baptist Convention back to its theologically conservative roots in the late 20th century — denies the allegations by Plaintiff Gareld Duane Rollins, who claimed Pressler sexually abused him repeatedly between the late 1970s, when Rollins was 14, and 2014. Rollins’ petition, filed in Texas state district court, alleges he was enrolled in a young adult Bible study which Pressler led at Houston’s First Baptist Church, and later served as Pressler’s office assistant.

My opinion of the lawsuit is that the allegations against Pressler may very well have merit. I think they know, however, that the allegations they make are making against Patterson and SWBTS are not tenable but are making them with the intention of causing as much collateral damage against the SBC in general and the CR specifically as possible. The connections made between the CR, Authoritarianism, and abuse of power make sense to me but I don’t see them being able to make their case to a jury (though I would love to be in the room as they attempt to). That Patterson is a closet-Calvinist is laughable, at least with regards to predestination. That they accuse Pressler of being a closet-Calvinist is, I think, a case of very carefully chosen terminology intended to invoke an entirely different closet. I choose to assume that the victim is seeking justice more so than any monetary gain.

If these allegations prove to be true, this blog piece may very well be the most earth-shattering report ever posted by TWW! (at least, SBC-shattering)

Pressler has been at the core of SBC theo-politics and Patterson has been at the core of SBC seminary training for young pastors. Al Mohler and his band of hand-picked SBC entity leaders are now at the core of the current theological shift to New Calvinism; their stealth and deception have become legendary. SBC is rotten at the core.

The following line from a report on this mess in Baptist News Global disturbs me greatly:

I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my law school friends was a clerk on the 14th Circuit Court of Appeals when Pressler was a judge. When my friend died of AIDS, we had to remain silent as to the actual cause of death because we didn’t want Pressler to take our friend and make him into some sort of example of “what immorality will get you.” I’m finding the current issue to be rather ironic in retrospect.

The Houston Country Club is a big deal. My nephew had his wedding reception there last summer and they rented out the entire place.

I met Pressler in 1998 when I became a consultant for the BGCT. That Baptist News article a few comments up is very interesting. Not just a personal lawsuit but more of a Vatican Light style purging. Lets hope God gets her church back.
“In this case, I am attacking the whole system,” Houston attorney Daniel Shea said in an interview with Baptist News Global.

The most shocking aspect of this story to me is not that another religious authoritarian leader is a sex abuser. Those stories are piling up. Wasn’t Jerry Sandusky of Penn State a faithful Methodist? And didn’t Dennis Hastert have his name on a building at Wheaton College? No the shocker for me is the dozens of stained glass windows at the Seminary. What are these people thinking!! I lectured at SWBTS just prior to the takeover of that seminary and there were whispers of terrible things to come. My dear friends, Alan Neely and Bill O’Brian, both one time SBC missionaries (Alan later a Princeton Seminary professor) told horror stories of how missionaries had to sign statements affirming they believed wives must submit “graciously” to husbands, and if they refused they were recalled from the field. Bill’s wife Delana (an incredibly wonderful woman) headed the Woman’s Missionary Union and fought for years to keep that organization independent (as it had always been) from the male headship of the SBC. In the end, her efforts failed, and Bill has always believed that the stress she endured contributed to her long illness and death. I hope this TWW post has follow-ups, and that many of these men can be outed and their evil ways brought to light. I would be pleased to visit SWBTS again to lecture and to be permitted to throw the first brick through the Pressler window. I’ll let someone else take care of Paige and Dorothy!

@ FW Rez:
This is an awesome comment which speak to the issues surrounding the Conservative Resurgence. Max wrote:

If these allegations prove to be true, this blog piece may very well be the most earth-shattering report ever posted by TWW! (at least, SBC-shattering)

I am with you on that one. Many people do not know of Paul Pressler’s involvement in the SBC takeover and the continued worship of him by the old boys. The stained glass window is Exhibit A. If this proves true, this means the whole resurgence was a sham.

We also know that thibshas been whispered about for years.I blame those men if this proves true.

The whole thing reminds me of a vision the prophet Ezekiel had regarding behind-the-scene sins committed by the leaders of Israel (Ezekiel 8). In that vision, God opened a hole in the wall so that Ezekiel could get a better look at the hypocrisy.

“Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness …”

TWW has become a “Hole in the Wall Gang”! Thank you for reporting, warning, and exposing shame in the dark recesses of Christendom.

No the shocker for me is the dozens of stained glass windows at the Seminary.

Their hubris in building a monument to the CR on the very hill they promised would not be impacted by their take-over is a good indicator of the lack of character behind the movement. Building it while most of them are still living just seemed like bad judgment.

I also take issue with them building a baptistery in MacGorman as I think baptism should be in the context of the local church, not an educational institution. Besides, the place smells like chlorine.

Considering the egos involved, I also consider it a deliberate insult to the history of the institution that they built MacGormam to be the tallest building on campus (or so it appears from the south).

He has surprised me with his handling of some not so public faculty situations (I knew the people impacted) where he was very magnanimous and accommodating. He has a respect for the arts (windows aside) that has benefited the seminary. From second hand accounts, I understand that he is very personable with people who he has open disagreements. In addition, he may be the only thing standing in the way of SWBTS becoming a Calvinist institution. The annual gun give-away on campus (sportsman event)….. not a fan.

I was not a fan of him starting the college, which they just re-branded Scarborough College, but have benefited from getting to know several undergrad students.

The respect scales will tip for many Southern Baptists, if Dr. Patterson is shown to have covered-up or enabled Paul Pressler in the abuse he has been accused of. Carrying the torch of Scriptural inerrancy during the Conservative Resurgence doesn’t mean much if it was borne by a pervert and his friends.

Many people do not know of Paul Pressler’s involvement in the SBC takeover and the continued worship of him by the old boys. The stained glass window is Exhibit A.

I wonder if Pressler paid for his window? All across the SBC landscape, big donors are honored by having their names engraved on buildings, gardens named after them, etc. etc. Touring the stained glass windows at Southwestern may prove to be a walk of shame, rather than a walk of fame.

The respect scales will tip for many Southern Baptists, if Dr. Patterson is shown to have covered-up or enabled Paul Pressler in the abuse he has been accused of. Carrying the torch of Scriptural inerrancy during the Conservative Resurgence doesn’t mean much if it was borne by a pervert and his friends.

If what is alleged about Pressler and Patterson is true watch how many of the CR boys turn against these two. The followers of these two men were taught well how to “bury” people and move on to the next victim.

Random thoughts: there never was a conservative resurgence. There were liberals in high places in the SBC and a house cleaning was needed, but instead the fundamentalists took over. Is Pressler guilty? He definitely could be. But then again, his accuser does come across as unhinged and sinister, so that does taint his allegations. Only time will tell. So I won’t say Pressler is guilty of sexual abuse just yet–just that he is accused.

And re the whole Calvinism is to blame thing? There are neoPuritans in all theologies today, and they are a problem. Some Calvinists today are more Calvinistic than Calvin was. But there is a growing body of moderate Calvinists in the SBC that just might save it from the magical thinking of YEC and end times apocalyptic focus. Most of these young unrestless reformed are also definitely not fundamentalist. So a Calvinist resurgence, especially the Noel form, might be a good thing.

I stand with those who are victims of sexual abuse. But experience has taught me not to believe accusations the instant they are made. I have a dear friend who is….troubled. Yes, she was molested as a child and suffers from bipolar disorder. But at this point she has accused so many innocent men (proven in court) that I no longer believe her allegations of being stalked, raped, whatever. That is a shame, because it could at some point be true. But I’ve been present to conversations between multiple people that were totally non sexual in nature and heard her speak of them a few days later as one of the men attempting indecent contact with her. Figment of her imagination. And I can only wonder if at least some of the “me too” moments, human nature being what it is since the Fall, are sparked by desire for money or fame and are simply lies.

We are only at the beginning of sorting things out. There are many powerful men and women guilty of horrible things that need to be called out. But in our rush to justice we need to beware of vigilante judgment lest we hang an innocent person.

Pressler started to abuse Rollins when Rollins was a young teen. Rollins reacted predictably to his trauma and started self-medicating. His drug of choice was alcohol. The alcohol lead to DUIs and other self-destructive behavior which lead to jail. (Common outcome of sexual trauma)

But what sets this story apart from any other that I have read is what follows after jail:

When it came time for Parole, Mr. Pressler (A Judge) advocated for Rollins. Then after he was paroled and rehabbed, Pressler gave Rollins a job in his office… Which essentially meant that Rollins was under Pressler’s thumb. With an incarceration record, Rollins would already have a difficult time finding a job. To be offered one by a judge? Did Rollins even have a choice but to take it? Would Rollins think he had a choice? If you screw up royally enough to end up in jail, you do not cross a judge, especially if that judge is writing to parole boards for you.

And for Pressler, the best part is that he gets all the kudos for showing God’s mercy and forgiveness to a convict, all while essentially guaranteeing that his victim cannot get away from him. This is a whole other level of sick.

Furthermore, it is no wonder that Biblical Counseling has become so popular with these folks. Not only do they get to engage in the favorite abuser’s tactic of blaming the victim, but they also get to spend a great deal of time talking about the evils of secular counselors and how terrible they are. Which means, someone like Rollins would have been trained to actively hide the cause of his alcohol dependence from the very counselors he needed to tell in rehab. It is the perfect cover for ensuring that you have victims, and they won’t tell…

But I want to add to my commentary. On the “Closet Calvanist” accusation (and this is a partially formed thought) – I suspect what they are trying to get into is actually political in nature. If indeed Pressler and Patterson colluded to take over a religious institution at the same time that Pressler was working his way up politically, then there is some reason to believe that Pressler is aiming for power in two spheres that in the US are legally separate. First off, this paints a portrait of an extremely power hungry man. But it also starts to lay the groundwork for claiming that there is a conservative Christian conspiracy to take over the US government… which is distinctly political in nature and has the possibility of implicating Pressler in more crimes than “just” sex crimes.

* Please note, I was raised in this Christian Conspiracy to take over the government. I know it exists, and I really don’t like it at all. I just see a much bigger political goal in this particular case than I have in other cases. This is aimed to attempt to cast doubt on most Conservative Christians in politics, because most of them have some sort of connection to Patterson, et. al. That is why I think they are so busy talking about Calvinism. Calvinism did, after all, take over the Government of Geneva completely.

No the shocker for me is the dozens of stained glass windows at the Seminary. What are these people thinking!!

This is just weird to me. I have been in many, many Baptist churches in my lifetime. Most of them are so careful to avoid idolatry, they don’t even have an American flag in the sanctuary; their communion tables are simple with a minimum of decoration; etc. I can’t fathom a Baptist institution putting these images in their chapel… even for those who are beyond reproach. To walk in would make me feel like… whom are we worshiping, again?

You can respect whomever you like. However, you do know that some people have stated that he threshes ex wife under the bus and that she is not *mentally crazy*as has been leaked around. I know some people really upset about that.

@ FW Rez:
I read the lawsuit. Setting aside everything I know/think about Patterson, what tiny bit I know of Pressler and my bias against Calvinism, I thought the doctrinal premise of the lawsuit was bizarre. I suppose they were trying to make a connection from doctrine to specific behaviors? Calvinism/conservatism as a catalyst for abuse?

A bridge too far?

On another note. When Dr. Klouda sued Patterson, part of Patterson’s defense was that SWBTS was a “church” in how it operated so could discriminate against Dr. Klouda teaching men. I wonder how that “church designation” argument might affect this lawsuit in terms of responsibility? It worked for Patterson then. Could it hurt now? In terms of Vatican-light?

I wonder if the claim of “suppressed memory” will be under scrutiny because he is saying he suppressed it even though the abuse was still happening when he was an adult in college. I have heard of it for people abused as children but not as adults. It must have been really traumatic. Especially because Pressler allegedly used Gods blessing of their special relationship. Barf.

“Shea said that though Rollins filed that assault charge more than a decade ago, he had a “suppressed memory” of the sexual abuse until he made an outcry statement to a prison psychologist in November 2015.”

Disney music executive charged with child sexual abuse was on worship staff of Gospel Coalition church

Jon Heely, arrested last month in Santa Clarita, Calif., is charged with abusing two girls a decade ago. Back in 2008, he was on the worship ministry staff of Grace Baptist Church Santa Clarita, working with its Living Proof youth choir ministry

Grace Baptist, a Gospel Coalition church in the same city as The Master’s University, is the church home of many of the school’s students, professors, and alumni — TMU President John MacArthur’s Grace Community church is located 15-20 miles away in Sun Valley.
Jon Heely was featured singer in the finale of the church’s Christmas program last year.

Heely’s twitter bio: “Disney Concerts and living to glorify God in all things”

Video of the 2016 Christmas program from the church’s Vimeo account; he appears starting at 1:27:20

He has surprised me with his handling of some not so public faculty situations (I knew the people impacted) where he was very magnanimous and accommodating. He has a respect for the arts (windows aside) that has benefited the seminary. From second hand accounts, I understand that he is very personable with people who he has open disagreements. In addition, he may be the only thing standing in the way of SWBTS becoming a Calvinist institution. The annual gun give-away on campus (sportsman event)….. not a fan.

I was not a fan of him starting the college, which they just re-branded Scarborough College, but have benefited from getting to know several undergrad students.

I thought the doctrinal premise of the lawsuit was bizarre. I suppose they were trying to make a connection from doctrine to specific behaviors? Calvinism/conservatism as a catalyst for abuse?

Following their thread through all the legalese is a bit daunting but that is what I understood as well. I didn’t understand why they felt they needed Calvinism specifically rather than a general adherence to Authoritarianism. A part of their argument is that abuse is systemic.

Mohler sounds real convincing in the article until you consider his ongoing support of C.J. Mahaney.

I have wondered if theCJ Mahaney situation is merely. reflection of some in the SBC who have mishandled pedophile situations and then covered it up? Maybe they view covering upset abuse as a virtue if it protects Big EVA.

he may be the only thing standing in the way of SWBTS becoming a Calvinist institution

There is nobody capable of standing in the way of Al Mohler when it comes to planting New Calvinist leaders at SBC seminaries. He did it at Southeastern and Midwestern. You can bet he already has someone in mind for Patterson’s office as soon as he retires. Patterson hasn’t opposed Mohler on the Calvinist Resurgence in years; in return, Mohler is letting him complete his tenure at Southwestern before he puts his man there.

“The stained glass window depicting Paul and Nancy Pressler was completed several years ago and has already been installed in the chapel.
What is wrong with this picture???”
+++++++++++++++++++++
well, for starters it looks dumb. mixing the abstract, dreamy geometric shapes and colors with realistic black and white drawings of humans.

Ugly, yes. Beautiful colors and shapes mixed with black & white scans, jarring and not pleasent to the eye.

Also, the couples are not standing together, they are far apart from each other. Not sure what the artist is trying to portray there but it reads “discord, separation, disunity, power-struggle, coldness” when I see it.

Not even mentioning the idolatry of the whole mess. I remember a couple years ago, an article showed a painting of Charles Stanley with Jesus sitting on the corner of Stanley’s desk, giving him advice on his sermon, I guess. I found that extremely creepy as well. (Found the link, scroll down to get the picture: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/17/us/andy-stanley/ )

Also, and this will be controversial, when men are overweight, I distrust them in leadership. If they can’t control their appetite for food, what other appetites are they having trouble controlling? I know 2 individual men in the ministry who were overweight (extreme, not a little 10 pounds or so over, if you know what I mean) but saw the need to trim down and did so. They’re not skinny-skinny, but they did make a difference. I have most respect for them. Gluttony is one of those oft ignored failings in the church but I see it as a possible sign of deeper issues.

I read the lawsuit. Setting aside everything I know/think about Patterson, what tiny bit I know of Pressler and my bias against Calvinism, I thought the doctrinal premise of the lawsuit was bizarre. I suppose they were trying to make a connection from doctrine to specific behaviors? Calvinism/conservatism as a catalyst for abuse?

A bridge too far?

I see it pretty much the same way. Even if Mr. Rollins has a credible complaint, this case goes nowhere. It either gets settled with a non-disclosure agreement or gets dismissed outright. Either way, we will never see the truth.

Lest we forget, perhaps due to the intense focus on the religious domain by TWW, harassment appears to be a pervasive problem. The 8 Dec 2017 issue of Science has an editorial directed towards the problems in science: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6368/1223 written by a two senior female researchers. From the editorial online summary “Studies of women in academia report that more than half have experienced harassment. This behavior has remained obscured for many reasons: fear, resignation, and acceptance.” Other than lacking the appeal to divinity and for forgiveness there is a familiar feel to this editorial.

Is it OK for me to respect Dr. Charles Stanley, or is he also tainted in some way?

The Southern Baptist minister who abused me in Texas moved on to be a children’s minister at FBC-Atlanta — i.e., at Charles Stanley’s church. When I was trying to locate him — after he had moved on to still another church — I sent a certified letter to the chairman of the deacons at FBC-Atlanta, and I got no response nor any help in my efforts to warn people. It’s hard to imagine that Charles Stanley would not have been informed of such a letter. When I showed up with several other women distributing flyers outside FBC-Atlanta to inform parents that their children’s minister for 20 years had been a man with a corroborated allegation of having sexually abused a kid (it was corroborated by another minister in my childhood church), they sent out a guy to try to bully us off the public sidewalk and then they called the police on us. Of course, the police were friendly and did nothing since we were on a public sidewalk, but that shows you something about the determination of the church leadership to avoid having people learn about the allegations against their prior children’s minister.

I thought the doctrinal premise of the lawsuit was bizarre. I suppose they were trying to make a connection from doctrine to specific behaviors? Calvinism/conservatism as a catalyst for abuse?

A bridge too far?

Agreed. Embedding that sort of thing in the lawsuit was a little odd. Not every abuser, authoritarian jerk, or otherwise bad actor in Christian leadership is a Calvinist – and not every Conservative in SBC life is a Calvinist.

(Hi Lydia, haven’t seen you commenting on TWW lately. I pretty much hang out here – the various SBC blogs didn’t care much for what I had to offer over the years (even though many of my “prophecies” have come true). Hope all is well with you and yours.)

well, for starters it looks dumb. mixing the abstract, dreamy geometric shapes and colors with realistic black and white drawings of humans.

That may be and you are certainly entitled to your opinion about the window. I’m aware that artwork sometimes uses colors, shapes and objects for a symbolic meaning which is not apparent to the viewer. Thus, I would be interested in learning if the individual who designed the window can provide any explanation for the colors and design.

What is wrong with this picture???”
+++++++++++++++++++++
well, for starters it looks dumb. mixing the abstract, dreamy geometric shapes and colors with realistic black and white drawings of humans.

More like two photorealistic portraits against an abstract geometric background. Which might still have worked except that abstract b/g is too busy. When the portraits are so detailed, you want a simple background for contrast.

Of course a stained-glass window in a chapel or church is NOT the place for Selfies. In my tradition, windows like that are reserved for Saints and other Heroes of the Faith (from days when they were used for teaching), and for anyone to put their Selfie into that context is beyond Presumptuous.

I heard the 1985 Night Line debate between PP and Cecil Sherman shortly before moving to Fort Worth to attend SWBTS. Basically, they were airing the denomination’s dirty laundry on national TV. My impression that night was that both were distasteful people that I wouldn’t want to be associated with.

Since my major professor was at Sherman’s church, I decided I would make an obligatory visit to his church out of respect and then move on to find a church home. Besides, even though I had no interest in hearing him preach, the music program was well respected for excellence.

Sitting in Sunday School the day of my visit, I noticed several people pointing out things they had learned from their pastor. They quoted him often and there was wisdom in his words. I attended services with an open mind. After visiting several other churches, it was an easy choice to make Dr. Sherman my pastor.

Is it OK for me to respect Dr. Charles Stanley, or is he also tainted in some way?

Here’s a link to the story about what happened when a group of us from SNAP showed up at FBC-Atlanta — i.e., Charles Stanley’s church — to try to inform congregants about the child sex abuse allegations against their former children’s minister. http://www.ethicsdaily.com/group-asks-southern-baptist-leaders-to-address-clergy-sex-abuse-cms-8554 And those allegations were not only corroborated by another minister but they were also finally admitted to in a letter from my childhood church in Texas apologizing for the “very serious sexual abuse” that was inflicted on me by that minister.

Not only do they get to engage in the favorite abuser’s tactic of blaming the victim, but they also get to spend a great deal of time talking about the evils of secular counselors and how terrible they are.

I’m wondering when these guys are going to start partnering with Scientology.
“Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend” and all that.

I can only wonder if at least some of the “me too” moments, human nature being what it is since the Fall, are sparked by desire for money or fame and are simply lies.

I’ve been expecting something like that since the scandals got enough momentum to really take off. The Bandwagon Effect tends to attract troubled types like that who want to be Important, and their antics end up discrediting the REAL victim testimonies.

If what is alleged about Pressler and Patterson is true watch how many of the CR boys turn against these two. The followers of these two men were taught well how to “bury” people and move on to the next victim.

Revolutions Per Minute.

“Baratheon, Lannister, Targerian — every House tries to stop the Wheel with themselves on top.”
— Tirian Lannister

Considering the egos involved, I also consider it a deliberate insult to the history of the institution that they built MacGormam to be the tallest building on campus (or so it appears from the south).

Like Sauron built Barad-Dur to be taller than the tower of the Valar in the Undying Lands?

In my tradition, windows like that are reserved for Saints and other Heroes of the Faith (from days when they were used for teaching), and for anyone to put their Selfie into that context is beyond Presumptuous.

One good thing about Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodix is they wait for people to die before declaring them as saints.

In my tradition, windows like that are reserved for Saints and other Heroes of the Faith (from days when they were used for teaching), and for anyone to put their Selfie into that context is beyond Presumptuous.

One good thing about Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodix is they wait for people to die before declaring them as saints.

===========================
Saint drstevej says….

If you’re not a SAINT when your alive,
then you certainly AIN’T when you’re dead.

Rom 1:7 “To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Acts 9:32 (Peter) “that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda.”
2 Cor. 13:13 “All the saints greet you.”
Eph. 1:1 ” To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ.”
2 Cor 1:1 “To the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia”
Phil. 1:1 “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi”
Col. 1:2 “To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse”
Eph. 4:12 ” for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

Studies of women in academia report that more than half have experienced harassment. This behavior has remained obscured for many reasons: fear, resignation, and acceptance.” Other than lacking the appeal to divinity and for forgiveness there is a familiar feel to this editorial.

My point is, in our human tendency to venerate people, there is wisdom in waiting until their lives are over and the truth comes out before we create and post icons of them.

Much agreement here Ken. The Catholic Church shows true wisdom in this regard. The distances between say St. Joseph (Jesus’ earthly Dad), Francis of Assisi, and men like Patterson and Pressler, are vast indeed.

If you’re not a SAINT when your alive,
then you certainly AIN’T when you’re dead.

The Roman Catholic church won’t declare you as a saint until you are dead and they can evaluate the evidence. However they consider those people to have been saints during their lifetimes along with many others who will never officially be recognized by the church on earth (hence All Saints day for all the ones they haven’t officially recognized).

Medieval church stain glass did sometimes have representations of living people in them but as minor supporting figures such as the donor shown inhttp://college.holycross.edu/projects/kempe/model/21b.html who is shown kneeling at Christ’s feet and about a third of the size (and this is one panel of a 10 big panel and 5 smaller panel window).

The hubris of someone putting themselves front and center in a church stain glass window seems a bit much. And I’m an atheist.

Even without the allegations, those horrible windows tell me everything I need to know about those men.

Who the heck came up with the idea about immortalizing these folks in stain glass windows?! The Conservative Resurgence leaders think more highly of themselves than they ought. Honoring heroes of the faith like missionaries would have been more appropriate at an SBC seminary, than highlighting wealthy donors.

“Be very careful not to do your good deeds publicly, to be seen by men; otherwise you will have no reward prepared and awaiting you with your Father who is in heaven … do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, give in complete secrecy” (Matthew 6).

One good thing about Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodix is they wait for people to die before declaring them as saints.

The safest course of action is to wait for people to die AND to wait for those who had any contact with them also to die before declaring them as saints. That way there won’t be any possible negative evidence to deal with.

Also, and this will be controversial, when men are overweight, I distrust them in leadership. If they can’t control their appetite for food, what other appetites are they having trouble controlling?

I once had a conversation with HUG on here about this very thing.

I can’t remember why it came up, but I mentioned San Antonio- based preacher John Hagee who has always been portly, but Hagree sure managed to preacher some fire and brimstone sermons against sins of adultery and so on.

That itself is funny because it’s my understanding that Hagee’s current wife was his mistress (he divorced his wife for the mistress).

(Hagee has a TV show on five days a week on Christian TV, or used to.)

I am sorry Dee and Deb if this is off topic, it just hit me as I was reading on this subject.
Someone said to another commenter on a different forum “Cant you read.”FULL STOP, STOP RIGHT THERE HIT THE BREAKS.

Sorry for the text drama. Think on what has to happen for us to read, the intricacies, the biological, physical, sensory, cognitive, emotional etc that has to work in balance so U can read. Any missing link and the chain breaks, unlike evolution, in literacy skills this is true. Of the many many sins I have committed IE showing grief, asking for help, being human, etc, one of the worst by far was not being able to read. It was torture as a kid as teachers accused me of faking it, biffing you in the head (opened hand hard slap to the back of the head). I hated myself for being so stupid and pathetic and that was reinforced in and in some ways outside the faith community. In my elementary school days, I spent hours after school learning to read, write and talk without stuttering (spitting) another vile sin of seeking attention (trust me that is a sin). Side note my friend Andy stuttered I use to walk home with him in junior high (I was pathetic that way I always gravitated to the outcasts a personal failing on my part). One day we got to his house and his dad was there ready to slap the spit out of his mouth, which was common with some parents, I remember standing our ground and yelling you cant hit my friend and ranting, I was good at that, his dad stopped for a while. Not sure if he got the crap beaten out of him later but I just could not stand there and watch or walk away (another failing on my part).

A true confession and I have never told anyone this, on occasion I would exaggerate my speed reading ability a bit when I did learn to read to “compensate” for being pathetic when I could not read. I don’t feel that way myself but boy it was made clear to me from other sources concerning reading abilities especially faith groups. So eventually I got my reading skills up to grade level (in college when they let me work alone) up to par. It did affect me and my grammar skills when made in faith groups, as I am lazy, don’t care, don’t pay attention, lazy etc. Computers helped me to compensate which is why I liked online courses and finished two masters degrees online, long story.

Funny how things work out because of my back injury I may not be able to continue working at my job, it makes me a bit uneasy and I am a bit ashamed of that because I am not being an overcomer, dealing with it, moving on etc. Basically, I keep almost falling over because I have an l3, 4, 5 blown discs.

Anyway, I tell this backstory to get to my main point, I started a ministry that will help pair affordable tech with a person with a disability and I have already got a few folks I am helping. Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing how tech (much of it open source/cheap) can make. It is so exciting and I get that hair stands up on the back of your neck feeling. (I use to think that was the “Holy Spirit” but after so many years in faith communities, I have repented of such stuff. Not really but I just say that when my mind tapes from the past play (if that makes sense). It is so healing to help others it really is.

And I can only wonder if at least some of the “me too” moments, human nature being what it is since the Fall, are sparked by desire for money or fame and are simply lies.

No. Just no. I’m a Me Too survivor of major criminal sexual abuse in my childhood. No, we just want to get this terrible stuff out of our minds & hope that if we share our pain, we will be able to get some relief.

Children do not make up stories involving adult, perverted behavior. Many women I’ve encountered still are stuck in the ‘women deserved it because of their clothing or activities.

I just do not believe that the many women who come forward publicly (which involves admitting to having been a victim of horrible stuff) are seeking fame or money.

We’re seeking relief! Just relief from the horrible burden of all those years…

And a strong feeling that we will do as much as we can to insure that our granddaughters don’t have to struggle as we have.

Is it OK for me to respect Dr. Charles Stanley, or is he also tainted in some way?

Why must we look to people we don’t personally know to find role models? The church is full of leaders who’be had an experience with, and have a relationship with the Bible. There are precious few who’ve had an experience with God. Which one describes Mr. Stanley to you?

He does look a little like the owner of the nuclear plant from The Simpson’s though.

I do not know how one defines ‘liberals’ and I do not know how one defines ‘high places’ but I was ‘been there/ done that’ in SBC churches from birth up until the mid seventies including at Crescent Hill and Highland Baptist in Louisville both of which had enough seminary students to have special SS classes aimed at them, some of which I attended as a student at Carver School. Before that my family was at Walnut Street where profs from the seminary filled the pulpit a lot-my mom thought that was great and my dad thought they were getting too ‘liberal’ at the seminary based on listening to the profs. This would have been in the late forties. Dad used to call Dr. Pettigrew, the pastor, Dr. Pettithought. It was that sort of thing-serve the masses pablum and send them on their way.

Personally I saw a trend in thinking toward what is now called ‘liberal’ during the years when I was in post-secondary education (1952-1964) and when I was considering medical missions as a life career and was paying attention to that sort of thing. This was in Louisville and from seminary related people.

Later when we were in practice and at FBCSmallTown in the early seventies I was so concerned with what was being preached, and what was not being preached, that I took my kids and joined the ‘flight’ of some other people to a small FWB church in that town–in the late seventies.

So, I don’t know about high places, but I know about my personal experience. I did not intend to raise my kids to believe what the Southern Baptists seemed to be becoming at the time. Note the dates. We left right before the conservative resurgence.

Since ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are subjective, and since I personally have one foot in each camp, I prefer to say that what I fled was sloppiness and a willingness to go along to get along during a time in which our culture was basically going to the dogs in some ways. Those were difficult times. (What times are not?)

@ okrapod:
Add to that, Louisville was the last CR hold out and did not fully succumb until Mohler was appointed in 1993 at age 33 and pulled his scorched earth bit. Then 64 year old Paul Debusman was an early victim. Right before he retired. His crime was disagreeing with Tom Ellif who spoke in chapel that SBTS did not allow conservative speakers. Debusman was the librarian/institutional historian who wrote him with facts. Ellif told Mohler and the 33 year old Mohler deprived him of full retirement.

I was a student at SWBTS when the Patterson- Pressler “Purge” occurred. Texas Baptists will never recover.

I saw men fired, forced into early retirement simply because they were not P&P’s toadies.

Most of these guys lived the life Christ would have us. I will never forget the night Ft. Worth had a massive ice storm and it was 9F. Cold for DFW. No lights in the city. My phone rang at 9pm and it was my church history professor. ” Do you have heat?” ” Do I need to come and get you and your family?” ” We are sleeping dorm style here, and my wife is cooking a big pot of soup for everyone on a gas stove.” We of course were okay, we had a gas fireplace…..but I can’t even imagine many pastors doing this today….

My former husband was a student at Baylor in the 50s and was the music guy with a weekend team which went out to churches on weekend revival on the weekends. The tales that he told me about the behavior of some of the various teams, and the attitudes of some of the guys involved in that enterprise, were part of what started him down a path toward unbelief. Or so he claimed. I met the two other guys on his team later. One was a communist sympathizer and an atheist by the time I met him, by his own words. The other was on the pastoral staff of a church here in our state, ‘involved’ with a woman not his wife, whom he later married after asking the deacons for permission to do so-his wife had died and she had divorced by then. Any my husband was worse in his thinking about christianity than some of the more difficult comments I have heard here on TWW.

So, when one says ‘Texas’ I am inclined to think that Texas was no better or worse than the rest of us-a mixed bag-at least Baylor and the boys that is.

My former husband was a student at Baylor in the 50s and was the music guy with a weekend team which went out to churches on weekend revival on the weekends. The tales that he told me about the behavior of some of the various teams, and the attitudes of some of the guys involved in that enterprise, were part of what started him down a path toward unbelief. Or so he claimed. I met the two other guys on his team later. One was a communist sympathizer and an atheist by the time I met him, by his own words. The other was on the pastoral staff of a church here in our state, ‘involved’ with a woman not his wife, whom he later married after asking the deacons for permission to do so-his wife had died and she had divorced by then. Any my husband was worse in his thinking about christianity than some of the more difficult comments I have heard here on TWW.

So, when one says ‘Texas’ I am inclined to think that Texas was no better or worse than the rest of us-a mixed bag-at least Baylor and the boys that is.

Do you think it is really any better in the SBC now? And Texas is full of sex scandals. Inside and outside the church walls. ( And Baylor has always been Baylor)

Right after WW1, Baylor and A&M got into a literal riot after a football game in which one A&M’s Corp of Cadets was killed. ( Baylor was a preachers school then, pretty much only preachers)
One later that evening, the Corp of Cadets got all “stirred up”( alcohol?) broke into the armory on campus, got automatic weapons and grenades, and they hijacked a train and headed to Waco to ” blow up Baylor.”
The Texas Rangers were called and stopped the train not too far from Waco….the thing is, the preachers at Waco heard they were coming and had armed themselves too..so, Texas is not all sugar sweet.

big donors are honored by having their names engraved on buildings, gardens named after them, etc. etc. Touring the stained glass windows at Southwestern may prove to be a walk of shame, rather than a walk of fame.

“Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Matthew 23:1-12

I think instead of “respecting” big name people like Charles Stanley, or anyone with a big name, we should be watching and learning from the people who work for the kingdom without any expectation of being seen or heard.

Like the guy who has greeted people every Sunday for 20 years.

And the woman who cooks for Wednesday night dinner every week.

Or the missionary who works in the poorest districts of third-world countries.

Or the pastors who shepherd in tiny churches in denominations where they could be moved from year to year.

Or the single mom or dad doing everything that still manages to volunteer at church.

Or the single person who volunteers in multiple ministries at church and everyone just expects it because they are single.

Of course not. But I do think that people who perhaps wanted stuff to be better may have thought at the time of the CR that here was a chance to be better or do better, according to what they thought was better.

And as to Texas, one of the Baylor guys I mentioned, the one with the history of adultery while a pastor and the one where the deacons knew all along and tolerated it-according to how he told the tale-that happened here in my state.

But the idea of why ‘mainline’ aka ‘liberal’ churches are dwindling, and why the evangelicals are growing may be the sorts of things that I keep trying, though poorly apparently, to say. Maybe people thought that ‘draining the swamp’ would help, regardless of whether they had any idea what they were talking about or not, and regardless of who got hurt.

No, I am not defending anything one way or the other about SBC now; I am long gone; it is not my business the politics of SBC-at all. I do think, however, that sometimes the larger story does not get taken into consideration, and as for the pew persons being oblivious-I do not find that in the few that we still interact with here. I may disagree with them, but I do not look down on them as being oblivious or such.

In the last election the political signs somehow disappeared from the lawns. The press reported on it. That was not because people were oblivious or disinterested but rather because they did not want people to know what they really thought-as evidenced by the election results. I think that some of the silence on ‘issues’ in religious circles of pew persons may be something like that.

I saw men fired, forced into early retirement simply because they were not P&P’s toadies.

I have often what happened to all these wonderful people who IMO were purged simply because they were “liberal”

I know my Hebrew professor who is an expert on Pslams moved back to the ” country” where he writes and generally works ” full time” as an interim pastor in small churches in that region….He seems at peace with the role God has put him in….Man with a PhD your pastor in a church of less than 100.

@ What Happened:
“Why must we look to people we don’t personally know to find role models? The church is full of leaders who’be had an experience with, and have a relationship with the Bible. There are precious few who’ve had an experience with God. Which one describes Mr. Stanley to you?”

======
I attended the church when he became pastor and when a deacon took a swing at him in a deacon’s meeting. He did baptise me and later write a reference for me to attend Dallas Seminary. I have heard many of his sermons and he was instrumental in the conversion of my parents whom I got to listen to him. He was their first exposure to biblical preaching.

I have often what happened to all these wonderful people who IMO were purged simply because they were “liberal”

I don’t know about those specific persons, but we have several fairly large Baptist churches here which are affiliated with the Co-operative Baptist Fellowship (I think that is the name) and who are building successful churches with larger and larger campuses and multiple employees and pre-schools and such. And yes, some of the pastoral staff are women, and some of the staff are ordained by and affiliated with non-Baptist denoms and it all seems to be working.

Is it OK for me to respect Dr. Charles Stanley, or is he also tainted in some way?

My response to you is written more in the vein of how we really don’t know these public “stage persona’s” at all but tend to think we do based upon the masterful delivery of words in public and self deprecating pulpit demeanors. My time consulting in mega churches showed me most of that is practiced to an art. .

I can remember reading Joel Gregory’s book, “Too Great a Temptation”, about his time at FBCDallas with Criswell. In one part of the book Gregory describes the “great airport meeting” concerning ‘what to do about Paige Patterson’ Who was then at Criswell college. All the biggies were there from Criswell to Adrian Rogers to Charles Stanley, etc.

At point in the meeting Charles Stanley gave a recitation of the people in his church who had tried to go up against him for whatever and what happened to them because of it. Some got cancer, some lost their jobs etc. etc. Horrors. According to Gregory’s account, Charles Stanley really said that in a meeting with other very important men and no one refuted him. Bizarre.

The “great airport meeting” happened sometime in the 80s, if I recall correctly. And, of course by the time I read the book many years later, I had already known a lot of nefarious things about Charles Stanley I wish I never knew so that fit his pattern.

Btw: Paige Patterson seems to have a career of staying one step ahead of the firing ax. But I think he knows were all the bodies are buried and that knowledge gave him a pass for years. 🙂

PS. After reading that book I cannot see Criswell’s name without thinking of oranges and his many bizarre eccentricitries that rival Churchill.

Making their own image in stained glass just takes the cake! Isn’t that what dictators like to do? Set up big pictures of themselves where people gather?

On the other hand—there’s people like James Kraft founder of Kraft Foods who walked with the Lord. Many people don’t know this, but he had a habit of collecting rare pieces of Jade. He loved to make broken pieces of jade into beautiful art.

To honor Christ—Kraft made a beautiful stained glass window out of hundreds of pieces of real Jade. It’s the picture of a cross with the name of Christ written on it in Greek. The window was designed to directly focus all the light on the name of Christ. It was put in Kraft’s home church—North Shore Baptist Church in Chicago.

One of Kraft’s favorite verses was Rev 3:20 (ERV) where Jesus says “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you.”

Kraft said, “To dine with God-to have His nourishing counsel and His fellowship everyday-it is necessary only to hear and to open the door. There has never been a day so busy that I have not found the time to be quiet-to listen, to read the Bible which is always in my desk-to pray-to reflect. A man who cannot, with an effort of will, turn from whatever he is doing, to be quiet within himself is a slave to his environment. He has never learned to listen.”

@ okrapod:
Crescent Hill and Highland Baptist are CBF. I don’t know about Walnut Street. Some of the older more traditional churches seem to straddle the SBC/CBF fence respectably without making a big deal of it. (They usually have much better music with more classically trained staff which is probably more important to me than other people)

Although I do know one older man who works for Mohlers “new and improved” KBC who was told he could no longer attend his long time Saint Matthews Baptist and had to attend what seems to be a seminary approved church. So evidently, the years of being able to straddle the SBC/CBF fence are over for entity employees in my neck of the woods. If one is near retirement, I am sure one complies instantly to Comrade Mohler’s minions who now run the KBC.

I cannot think of a way that SBTS could be more inappropriately and publicly excessive. Donors should be upset. Perhaps these stained/discolored/blotched-glass windows should be widely publicized so that people can clearly see where the SBC is heading with Mohler at the helm.

Following England’s collapse this morning, Australia set about compiling a huge first-innings total. It’s probable that England will just about make up the first-innings deficit, but a 10-wicket win for Australia is now inevitable, giving them an unassailable 3-0 lead in the 5-match series, and (bearing in mind that a Test match can be drawn) putting them well on the way to a 5-0 whitewash.

At point in the meeting Charles Stanley gave a recitation of the people in his church who had tried to go up against him for whatever and what happened to them because of it. Some got cancer, some lost their jobs etc. etc.

Just like those who cross a Conjure-Man in Manly Wade Wellman’s weird fiction or a Hexen in Pennsylvania Dutch lore. Both are full of Witch-Men putting Hexes on those who go up against them.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
(Formatting of my last post to you got messed up, let me try this again.)
Re: Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” song –
Ever since I found out what that song is allegedly about, I can’t stomach it.

As I understood it, he based it on actual run-ins with a highly-obnoxious news crew.

Like “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh — everything in that song actually happened to Joe Walsh during his rock-star career.

Ken F (aka Tweed) wrote:
One good thing about Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodix is they wait for people to die before declaring them as saints.

The safest course of action is to wait for people to die AND to wait for those who had any contact with them also to die before declaring them as saints. That way there won’t be any possible negative evidence to deal with.

So that they’re not around to contradict The Official Story.
That’s the downside of it.

Crescent Hill is more liturgical, too, and still has that glorious pipe organ. They share that grand old building with a Classical Latin school now. We are there a lot for music affiliated things. Old Highland Baptist has great acoustics for recitals. Both churches have painstakingly kept the integrity of the original building woodwork, etc. They are beautiful.

“well, for starters it looks dumb. mixing the abstract, dreamy geometric shapes and colors with realistic black and white drawings of humans.”

“That may be and you are certainly entitled to your opinion about the window. I’m aware that artwork sometimes uses colors, shapes and objects for a symbolic meaning which is not apparent to the viewer. Thus, I would be interested in learning if the individual who designed the window can provide any explanation for the colors and design.”
++++++++++++++++++

music & art may be in the eye of the beholder, but there is a line between what is musical & artistic and what is not. Sometimes a very fine line.

this is like swerving off Artistic Street onto the curb and eating up someone’s lawn with your tires.

music & art may be in the eye of the beholder, but there is a line between what is musical & artistic and what is not. Sometimes a very fine line.
this is like swerving off Artistic Street onto the curb and eating up someone’s lawn with your tires.

I am completely artistically challenged and I think they are absolutely hideous purely based on visual appeal. An insult to the art of stained glass.

That is a new one for me. When I say new, I mean the last 20-30 years. From my perspective I think the advent of the celebrity Christian began with the Christian music market back in the 70’s. There are so many roads that lead to things that make all of this so very interesting to me from a marketing perspective. For example, AM radio dominated until deregulation and then FM timeslots were cheap for a while. ( some of this means we could’ve had cell phones a lot sooner, btw) Then, AM timeslots were available and people bought them up like crazy for market niches like Christian, country, etc. One of the biggest Christian radio stations in our city in the 80s was owned by a Jewish fellow. Preachers were salivating to buy slots. Then the book publishing business and then internet. Now they are by default, dignitaries. Only us rebels question such silliness!

The very thought would be anathema to someone in ministry. Unless they had entered the ministry in the first place because they thought godliness was a means of gain. (This from 1 Timothy 5 – the context is very, very thought-provoking indeed.)

Well, to be specific (can’t remember whether I mentioned it) I work for the IT development wing of Registers of Scotland (RoS for short, and generally pronounced “Roz”). RoS celebrated its 400th anniversary this year and is, to my knowledge, the oldest land-registry service in the world. In a nutshell, RoS is the part of the Scottish Government that looks after all of the data on who owns every individual piece of land in Scotland, and in this exact context, there are over half a billion “pieces of land” in my adopted country. To give some historic context, the most senior person in the organisation is formally known, not as the CEO, but as the “Keeper of the Registers of Scotland”.

The answer to your question is, really well. It’s a great department – for all the rich, peat-smoke-scented, heather-clad history of the organisation *, the IT department is a fantastic hotbed of best practice and cutting-edge tech. It would be hard to over-state how highly I regard the folk here, and next year is looking very good fun indeed.

* I may have mentioned this before, but although I’m English by birth, I love Scotland and have lived here for most of my adult life.

You end up on the backside of the desert if you do! If a pastor opposes SBC elites in control at any given time, it is a career-killer. Such is the nature of authoritarian control … and when it happens in religious circles, it stinks to high heaven.

Although I do know one older man who works for Mohlers “new and improved” KBC who was told he could no longer attend his long time Saint Matthews Baptist and had to attend what seems to be a seminary approved church.

Creepy!

And those stained glass windows are awful. Beyond parody, on pure aesthetics.

As I hear more of these stories, I find the “takeover” argument less & less convincing. Judging from the size of churches & the sheer resources these guys have to work with, my empathy for the rank & file continues to diminish.

That being said, I do feel bad for the women and children raised behind this theological iron curtain.

As for the rest, flush ’em out of their tax free mansions & bring them to justice.

The laws of the land not the laws of a long dead civilization kept alive by “scripture”.

His response in that was so horrible! And i wonder how he is explaining this latest news to his ‘poor grandaughters’!

“SNAP is just as reprehensible as sex criminals. To make false accusations against a person in an effort to tarnish his reputation, as they regularly do and have most recently done to me, is just as reprehensible and involves just as little integrity. My little granddaughters, 10 and 8, were here the other day and heard on TV that their grandpa harbored sex criminals! I suppose that this is somehow OK since I am a pastor?”

I wonder if Rollins lawyers are aware that SNAP has previously brought up the issue of not addressing steps to stop abusers from hiding in the church to Patterson repeatedly!

“The Nashville Scene investigative article includes several stories reported during the last 17 months by EthicsDaily.com. To date EthicsDaily.com has carried 74 news stories and a dozen opinion articles since a Sept. 27, 2006, report that first detailed SNAP’s contention that Southern Baptists’ free-wheeling style of local-church autonomy indirectly shields sexual predators. SNAP called it a “systemic” problem and proposed concrete steps to better protect children from sexual abuse.”

American civilization IS kept alive, healthy, and generously prosperous by the light of the word of God…

Last time I checked.

*

“Many of the crew wanted to turn back, but after much consultation, t’was decided that we would continue . The carpenters and sailors mended the beam and caulked the leaks. Thus we put our faith in God and we press on. I do not think that I can stand such a fright again. I pray that we reach the New World soon…” – Lizzy, in her letter from the Mayflower, 1620 A.D.

The plaintiff is an adult who brought a lawsuit in open court. Anyone can get a copy of the pleading. THe plaintiff is not a child, therefore, he does not have privacy in this case.

Pressler — who helped engineer a strategy to turn the Southern Baptist Convention back to its theologically conservative roots in the late 20th century — denies the allegations by Plaintiff Gareld Duane Rollins, who claimed Pressler sexually abused him repeatedly between the late 1970s, when Rollins was 14, and 2014. Rollins’ petition, filed in Texas state district court, alleges he was enrolled in a young adult Bible study which Pressler led at Houston’s First Baptist Church, and later served as Pressler’s office assistant.

And for Pressler, the best part is that he gets all the kudos for showing God’s mercy and forgiveness to a convict, all while essentially guaranteeing that his victim cannot get away from him. This is a whole other level of sick.

I was thinking the same thing – another way to control ROllins and make sure he does not talk about his abuse.

On the “Closet Calvanist” accusation (and this is a partially formed thought) – I suspect what they are trying to get into is actually political in nature. If indeed Pressler and Patterson colluded to take over a religious institution at the same time that Pressler was working his way up politically, then there is some reason to believe that Pressler is aiming for power in two spheres that in the US are legally separate. First off, this paints a portrait of an extremely power hungry man. But it also starts to lay the groundwork for claiming that there is a conservative Christian conspiracy to take over the US government… which is distinctly political in nature and has the possibility of implicating Pressler in more crimes than “just” sex crimes.

I have read probably a thousand legal pleadings in my 10 year career and I have never read one like Rollins’ complaint. While I remain neutral as to whether the defendants are liable until more information is known, the first part of the complaint really has no part in a regular complaint. Most complaints filed outline the behavior of the defendants that gave rise to the filing of the suit and the legal theories that allow for compensation of the plaintiff for the alleged wrongs. It almost sounds as if the plaintiff is looking for some kind of judicial judgment on the church political issues, as well as the sex abuse issues. I understand that there are a lot of people here who have left the SBC and may take issue with the idea of biblical inerrancy, but when you suggest that the court make a judgement about them, you are walking into very dangerous territory. This lawsuit is very dangerous and has likely been brought, not only for Rollins’ recovery, if entitled, but for political reasons. Usually, in cases where the defendants would rather see the suit go away, a settlement is reached shortly after the discovery phase is completed and any dispositive motions have been filed and heard. Whether or not this case is settled will be very telling. If the plaintiff brought the case for reasons other than recovery, they will refuse to settle, as a trial and public airing of the church political issues and subsequent judgment is what they desire. If the defendants refuse to settle, then they will be standing on their church and political agendas. Either way, this case could have disastrous consequences for all people of faith, conservative or liberal, as any judgement will be appealed and the appeals courts will be making law.

” I understand that there are a lot of people here who have left the SBC and may take issue with the idea of biblical inerrancy, but when you suggest that the court make a judgement about them, you are walking into very dangerous territory. This lawsuit is very dangerous and has likely been brought, not only for Rollins’ recovery, if entitled, but for political reasons.

…this case could have disastrous consequences for all people of faith, conservative or liberal, as any judgement will be appealed and the appeals courts will be making law.”
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can you spell it out? how is this case dangerous, exactly? what exactly could the disastrous consequences be?

That being said, I do feel bad for the women and children raised behind this theological iron curtain

You know, Jack, as a lifelong SB, I have to say that the ideas of male domination are not preached in all SB churches. Its certainly not taught in mine, and Biblical and Christian counseling is not a means to control and subjugate women, although some counselors may be of that thought process. Clearly there are snakes in the corncrib, so to speak, and there will always be those who use Scripture to justify or strengthen their own abuse or control of others. But there are also a lot of good people in the SB denomination dedicated to sharing God’s truth about salvation and helping those less fortunate.

As terrible as the accusations are, and although they do sound true, its important to make note of some things. The first is that complaints often sound very convincing. They are meant to sound convincing. You are arguing as to why you should be compensated for an alleged wrong. However, as the case is litigated and discovery is exchanged, things are not so clear. Believe me, nothing in litigation is a slam dunk. Ever. The second is that the court may refuse to listen to any of the doctrinal issues or conflict, (and you should hope it does refuse to do so) because a civil courtroom is not the place for it. What bothers me the most about this situation is that you have a potentially true victim and his attorney, rather than focusing on the harm is going into areas that have nothing to do with what happened. THat should concern everyone.

“a potentially true victim and his attorney, rather than focusing on the harm is going into areas that have nothing to do with what happened. THat should concern everyone.”
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if a hierarchical belief system produces people at the top so endowed with power (they feel it emanating out through their extremities, with tingles… or so imagine) that they begin reasoning they are above rules, wouldn’t this be at least part of what happened?

I know there were liberals in high places from the drivel being published for me to teach my youth SS class, for starters. Instead of the Bible I was supposed to teach Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You might love or hate the book, it might be great for other venues, but it was not SS material.

I know from the drivel being published in Home Life. Fascinating Womanhood, anyone? Frequently referenced.

There were truly liberal folks (not a lot of them btw), truly moderate folks, truly conservative folks, and the fundamentalists. All of us not in the latter category were labeled liberals and driven out. Yes, to be SBC we needed to return to a Biblical focus and an evangelistic focus.

the ideas of male domination are not preached in all SB churches … there are also a lot of good people in the SB denomination dedicated to sharing God’s truth about salvation and helping those less fortunate

This is very true. As a 60+ year “traditional” Southern Baptist, I can testify that most SBC members are good folks who love God and each other. The non-Calvinist majority are evangelistic, mission-minded, and non-discriminatory when it comes to race, class and gender. While some authoritarian leaders have occupied some SBC pulpits over the years, that has not been the rule in most churches. However, the New Calvinist movement is bringing a multitude of young reformers into the fold with elder-rule on their mind and authoritarian practices which control the sheep, subordinate female believers, and diminish long-held Baptist doctrines of priesthood of the believer and soul competency. SBC life will be much more rigid in future years during their tenure, as freedom in Christ is deemphasized in favor of doctrinal propositions about grace rather than proclaiming the need for a direct personal experience of Grace.

This is very true. As a 60+ year “traditional” Southern Baptist, I can testify that most SBC members are good folks who love God and each other. The non-Calvinist majority are evangelistic, mission-minded, and non-discriminatory when it comes to race, class and gender. While some authoritarian leaders have occupied some SBC pulpits over the years, that has not been the rule in most churches. However, the New Calvinist movement is bringing a multitude of young reformers into the fold with elder-rule on their mind and authoritarian practices which control the sheep, subordinate female believers, and diminish long-held Baptist doctrines of priesthood of the believer and soul competency. SBC life will be much more rigid in future years during their tenure, as freedom in Christ is deemphasized in favor of doctrinal propositions about grace rather than proclaiming the need for a direct personal experience of Grace.

Calvin must increase and Jesus must decrease for these New Calvinist IMO.

@ Kasvict2:
Strange. I thought the doctrinal/political focus was a big distraction from the actual abuse. I don’t read tons of complaints but my first reaction was, what exactly is to be on trial here?

If Calvinist/Conservatism are precursors to abuse then that would mean such doesn’t happen in free will/liberal churches/orgs.

I would love it if people left Calvinism. But I’d rather it be on personal conviction.

There is no reason to invoke the church issues in a sexual abuse case.

Agreed. Playing a gray “Closet Calvinist” card may work against the attorney in making his case … it distracts from proving the black & white of abuse. If the allegations are true, religion didn’t make Judge Pressler do it … yielding to lust of the flesh did.

This is very true. As a 60+ year “traditional” Southern Baptist, I can testify that most SBC members are good folks who love God and each other. The non-Calvinist majority are evangelistic, mission-minded, and non-discriminatory when it comes to race, class and gender. While some authoritarian leaders have occupied some SBC pulpits over the years, that has not been the rule in most churches. However, the New Calvinist movement is bringing a multitude of young reformers into the fold with elder-rule on their mind and authoritarian practices which control the sheep, subordinate female believers, and diminish long-held Baptist doctrines of priesthood of the believer and soul competency. SBC life will be much more rigid in future years during their tenure, as freedom in Christ is deemphasized in favor of doctrinal propositions about grace rather than proclaiming the need for a direct personal experience of Grace.

Calvin must increase and Jesus must decrease for these New Calvinist IMO.

And in this SBC numbers will decrease. The denomination will continue the downward numbers spiral.

There were truly liberal folks (not a lot of them btw), truly moderate folks, truly conservative folks, and the fundamentalists. All of us not in the latter category were labeled liberals and driven out.

I have always liked what was written on George Whitefield’s tombstone:

“Here lies George Whitefield; what sort of man he was the great day will discover.”

The kind of guy who thought he needed slaves to work at the plantation to fund his orphanage, and thus became the leading proponent of overturning Georgia colony’s law against slave ownership.

Yeah, that’s snarky. But when I think of thousands upon thousands of men, women and children who were brought in as slaves due to Whitefield’s actions, his preaching pales by comparison. This wasn’t an action done once, and regretted. No, this was done over a period of time, and so far as we know, he never regretted being a slaveowner and evangelist. And yes, to me, it’s a real problem.

This is the part of the article that gets me:
‘Preaching from 1 Kings 8:22-30, President Paige Patterson said his prayer for the chapel was similar to Solomon’s dedicatory prayer for the temple—that it would be a place to honor the name of the Lord, a place to seek His face, and a place to experience His presence.’

to be SBC we needed to return to a Biblical focus and an evangelistic focus

The Conservative Resurgence which became a Calvinist Resurgence is certainly not evangelistic in nature … and the only Biblical focus New Calvinism offers is through a reformed grid of aberrant theology. The post-CR SBC is not an evangelistic denomination; whereas, the world took note of the pre-CR SBC which carried a gift of evangelism with a mission of whosoever-will-may-come to all people. The SBC has forfeited its denominational gifting as a new breed of reformed pastors hit the pulpit preaching doctrines of grace, but not truly ministering the Grace of Jesus to a hurting world.

Yeah, that’s snarky. But when I think of thousands upon thousands of men, women and children who were brought in as slaves due to Whitefield’s actions, his preaching pales by comparison. This wasn’t an action done once, and regretted. No, this was done over a period of time, and so far as we know, he never regretted being a slaveowner and evangelist. And yes, to me, it’s a real problem.

There was a guy down in Bama’ who lost the GOP bid for the U.S. Senate who would dearly love to return to those good old godly times.

I attended the church when he became pastor and when a deacon took a swing at him in a deacon’s meeting. He did baptise me and later write a reference for me to attend Dallas Seminary. I have heard many of his sermons and he was instrumental in the conversion of my parents whom I got to listen to him. He was their first exposure to biblical preaching.

It sounds like you’ve answered your own question, although others may have a different perspective. But, my questions remain. Why do we feel the need to find someone to respect. We see a lot of what and how from these people, but we never get the why that comes from intimately knowing someone. It may be the why that best helps us identify the sheep and the goats. The “why” is also helps us determine whether the person has a relationship with God or the Bible. I believe that Mr. Stanley has a relationship with Bible, but I don’t know about God. A person who has no relationship or experience with God can’t validate or encourage the experience or relationship of others based solely on Biblical knowledge.

That is a very interesting point about asking the court to take a side on Biblical inerency. I am not a lawyer, but something about this struck me, and still strikes me as extremely political in nature.

“well, for starters it looks dumb. mixing the abstract, dreamy geometric shapes and colors with realistic black and white drawings of humans.”

“That may be and you are certainly entitled to your opinion about the window. I’m aware that artwork sometimes uses colors, shapes and objects for a symbolic meaning which is not apparent to the viewer. Thus, I would be interested in learning if the individual who designed the window can provide any explanation for the colors and design.”
++++++++++++++++++

music & art may be in the eye of the beholder, but there is a line between what is musical & artistic and what is not. Sometimes a very fine line.

this is like swerving off Artistic Street onto the curb and eating up someone’s lawn with your tires.

Or, as my Romantic Poetry professor once put it: “There is pretty wide latitude with interpretation of poetry. But there are some interpretations that are just plain wrong.”

@Headless Unicorn Guy and other fans of sci-fi and fantasy, have you heard about Moira Greyland Peat’s new book, *The Last Closet*? It’s about her horrifically horrible life growing with her up famous parents — one of whom was the author of *Mists of Avalon* and both of whom were evil, abusive monsters. Especially the mother, the famous authoress.

I have never been a sci-fi/fantasy fan — LOTR and C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy were my only fantasy indulgences; I barely made it through the first few overwritten pages of *Gormenghast* (sp?). So, I’m not part of “fandom” and know next to nothing about it. But I understand that some fans knew at least a little bit about the abuse of Moira and her siblings and did nothing about it. So awful.

(I promised Moira that I would buy the book, but I am hesitant to actually *read* it, although I am not myself a victim of sexual abuse, because people with OCD get triggered easily.)

@Headless Unicorn Guy and other fans of sci-fi and fantasy, have you heard about Moira Greyland Peat’s new book, *The Last Closet*? It’s about her horrifically horrible life growing with her up famous parents — one of whom was the author of *Mists of Avalon* and both of whom were evil, abusive monsters. Especially the mother, the famous authoress.

I’ve known about this for a couple of years–Deirdre Saoirse Moen, who wrote the original article about Moira Greyland is a close friend of mine. (We chat almost every day.) The whole thing is pretty horrific. While I wasn’t such a fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon series, I did like her Darkover series, and had read all the books. I think I’ve tossed them all out now. I can’t even abide the possibility that they’re in my house.

Science Fiction and Fantasy hasn’t dealt well at all with its creepsters and molesters and this is but another example. There was a discussion on Twitter yesterday about the so-called “Breendoggle” and Deirdre was basically cut out of the discussion by people who should know better.

That said, I can’t in good conscience buy Moira’s book because it’s published by Vox Day’s “Castalia House.” Day has issues with women in general and I don’t feel good about handing money over to someone who tried to destroy the Hugo Awards a couple of years back.

Deirdre told me a few weeks ago she’d gotten a document dump (a couple pounds of documents snail mailed to her) on this whole matter and she’s reviewing them. I have not asked her for an update. Probably I should, but she may be writing another article.

It seems like every business, government, institution or fandom has its share of skeevy molesters, stalkers and creepsters. Ugh.

I’d never even heard of Vox Day. This is all uncharted territory for me. I know Moira via Facebook and admire her very much. I plan to buy her book to support her, but I can tell just by reading the first few pages (via Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature) that I will not be able to read some parts of it. The reviews say that Chapter 10 is excruciating. Not exactly my idea of jolly reading for Christmastide. Nonetheless, I think her story very much needs to be told, especially now, as some people are actually pushing for normalizing of pedophilia and lowering of the age of consent.

this all just makes me want to throw up. some members of my family are turning because of all this kind of stuff, and I may be one of them. I have always promised myself though, for many years anyways, that I’ll only look at God and never at pastors, or people, cause I’ve known for so long how utterly phony they are. Watched my family be destroyed at their hands. I don’t even know what to say, except how do you think this guys victim will ever be ok? yuck. You just CAN’T look at people or you’ll have literally no faith in God left, and sometimes I think some of these people are closet satanists.

@Headless Unicorn Guy and other fans of sci-fi and fantasy, have you heard about Moira Greyland Peat’s new book, *The Last Closet*?

Not until now.

It’s about her horrifically horrible life growing with her up famous parents — one of whom was the author of *Mists of Avalon* and both of whom were evil, abusive monsters. Especially the mother, the famous authoress.

I have never been a sci-fi/fantasy fan — LOTR and C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy were my only fantasy indulgences; I barely made it through the first few overwritten pages of *Gormenghast* (sp?).

Spelling is correct, but you’re far from the only one to have that reaction to it.

F&SF covers a LOT of ground, and what you’re talking about is the Over-Literary Important stuff. For so long, SF wanted to be “respectable” to the Literary Establishment; problem was, the closer it got to “respectability” on those terms the more it acquired High Literature’s bad habits and attitude. The old Hour 25 radio talk show used to say “Get SF back to the ghetto where it belongs!”

I’d heard of him here and there starting around Y2K, and he seemed to have a reputation of a highly-opinionated flaming A-hole. Pity… He once did a fantasy novel (Summa Elvetica) under a pen name that had a REAL interesting premise.

But I’ve found through experience that creative artist types can also be real jerks.

But I understand that some fans knew at least a little bit about the abuse of Moira and her siblings and did nothing about it. So awful.

I knew nothing about that until just a couple years ago, and I was involved in SF litfandom since ’75. As an isolated kid genius with an emotional/personality development of an 8-year-old in a 20-year-old’s body, I would have been prime prey material for such predators.

Yet for some reason, I did not encounter any until around the time Furry Fandom split off from SF & Anime fandom well into the Eighties, and by then I could at least “smell out” that something was wrong (as in grooming behavior). All I can figure is that SF fandom at the time was a pretty big pond, big enough that you had a low chance of running into that sort of predator. And I DID have a support system in a loose D&D group I’d linked up with early; we all knew each other (comrades in dungeon-crawling and Balrog-bashing) and stuck together at cons (conventions).

I do know that there were always some fen (plural of fans) who went to cons specifically to cruise to get laid, but my D&D buds and I were not some of them. (Later had some experience in the late Eighties with a gamer roommate who was one of those fannish horndogs, but that’s a whole ‘nother story arc.) Did have the attitude regarding attempts to date femfans that “the higher the IQ, the lower the sexual morality”, so I was probably observing something subconsciously.

(Note that before the Eighties, “SF/fantasy fandom” were catchalls of litfans, media fans (archetyped by Trekkies), animation/cartoon fans, filkers (novelty song fans) and various other cliques that have since fissioned into their own specialized fandoms: SF, Fantasy, Comics, Anime, Cartoons (non-Anime), Furry, Brony, you name it.)

I do know (in retrospect) that one of the movers and shakers in local Furry Fandom was a sexual predator, and think he might have been trying to groom me like he did so many others. But for some reason (maybe sheer cluelessness, I was pretty clueless back then ), I not only didn’t fall for it but hardly noticed it at the time. Since then, Furry Fandom has developed quite a rep for attracting those con-cruising horndogs, and I trace it to some of those early founders trying to live out their sexual kink fantasies who shaped the early fandom in their image. (Hmmmm… like some of those Celebrity Preacher types that get exposed on this blog?)

The best stained glass window was a parody with the First Baptist Jax watchdog on one of those SWBTS chapel windows. Tge whole project is a dog and nothing is from the Bible. It is all about the glory of men rather than of God. Anyway back to the topic. It seems sometimes that those who profess great righteousness are the greatest hypocrites. It is believable this stuff happened, because it does happen. Hope the truth comes out in the end.

This story is just further proof that the “conservative resurgence”/fundamentalist takeover of the SBC has resulted in the non-conservative, non-fundamentalist idolatry of these “conservative” men. Baptists originally did not even have stained glass windows in our churches because of idolatry, but later we grew to allow them. Yet, even during the so-called “liberal” era of the SBC I don’t believe they were running around immortalizing themselves in stained glass. Traditionally, you would pay for a window featuring a biblical figure and your name(or a loved one’s) would be included on a plaque. It is neither biblical nor conservative to act with such in-humility. I am convinced that for many of the leaders today, it isn’t about biblical inerrancy or anything else, as it is control by them of others, even though they demonstrate over and over that they have not submitted themselves to the one true authority that a Christian must submit, God.

I will always consider myself a Baptist, but I can’t support what the SBC has become, I do often pray however that God will save the SBC from the sins of it’s leaders, both their physical/sexual and theological sins.

The lawsuit claims Patterson, like Pressler, “appears to be a closet Calvinist” and that the supposedly Calvinistic theology they advocated during the Resurgence regarded women and children as “property.” Pressler’s co-defendants, the suit claims, made “minors sexually available to Pressler,” who “under Calvinist dogma” is “considered to be [among the] Vice Regents of God.”

I have purchased the book and am through Chapter 3. I’m reading with the view that the author’s perspective on some things will be greatly affected by the horrendous life she was subjected to by her parents, which is totally understandable. Her parents had horrendous childhoods as well which obviously shaped their lives into horrific actions. It might be a pick up and put down book, depending on how much real life horror one can intake.

As someone volunteering in the foster care environment, I can see the effects of parental abuse flowing from generation to generation and the need to break that cycle. One can also see the damage inflicted on children and how that abuse/neglect actually damages/changes the brains of children. There are studies being done in this field that point to brain changes.

HUG, I should have been clearer. I think it was just the fans close to Moira’s parents who knew something about it. Fandom in general did not. (How could they?)

i.e. The Inner Ring.
A similar dynamic to what goes on in Christian Celebrity Mega-Pastor circles that tends to pop up here and on other abuse watchblogs. Just these were SF Celebrities instead of Christian Celebrities.

As I said before, SF fandom was a pretty big pond with lotsa little fish, and there was quite a bit of oral history/lore going around during my time of maximum immersion. Such as:

1) Scientology originating from a bar bet between L Ron Hubbard and a big-name editor at the hotel bar of a late Forties/early Fifties WorldCon. Several of the LASFS old-timers said as far as they were concerned “Elron never stopped writing Pulp SF”.

2) Legendary Old-School author Isaac Asimov had a reputation as an egotistical snob — and a dirty old man who’d feel up women in hotel elevators (what the French call a frotteur). If he were alive today, he’d probably get nailed in the splash of celebrity sex scandals.

3) Several other old-school authors had a reputation as drinking men — I remember an old filksong about Gordon Dickson drinking a fan under the table. Another time I got confused by a book jacket portrait of author Jerry Pournelle in a business suit before a library wall — every time I’d seen him at LASFS or cons, he was in a safari jacket with a beer instead of a book. REAL LOUD VOICE, too — he was in Army Artillery during the Korean War.

And there always was an underground minority current of “non-conventional sexual mores” in SF litfandom. SF is basically a genre of “The Great ‘What-If?'”, and that “What-If” can include sexual subjects. Very occasionally it surfaced into something like “Live The Dream”, a Free-Love CULT of around 10-20 years ago that used the fictional society in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land as Scripture. Or the “Goreans”, who attempted to live out a soft-core wish-fulfilllment sword-and-sorcery series centered around Manly Men and their female Sex-Slaves in chains (“What is Thy Wish, Milord and Master? How Might I Better Submit?”).

Your experience sounds fascinating. Was there really a whole subculture devoted to novelty songs? As in the Coasters? “Poison Ivy” and “Yakety-Yak”? Seriously? LOL!

In SF fandom, it’s called “filksinging” or “filking” and originated with a tradition of novelty songs on SF subjects, usually using existing tunes. (“Yoda” by Weird Al Yankovic would be a type example, though Weird Al was not associated with that fandom.) But it soon branched out to include original compositions, serious songs as well as funny, and just about anything you could think of, as long as it had SOME vague connection to F&SF.

“Randall figured in one of Mother’s favorite jokes. Since they were both science fiction writers, they had briefly been friends with L. Ron Hubbard. They had been discussing with him how to create religions in their science fiction worlds, and were both appalled when Hubbard announced he was going to use this knowledge to create his own religion and get rich. Every time Hubbard’s name was mentioned after that, Mother would say “I knew him when he was a small-time crook!”

All the other unsavory stuff aside, to me it it seems beyond freakishly weird and wrong that anyone thought it was a good idea to have their own image in a stained glass window in a place of worship.

Very strange indeed….creepy….idolatrous. Baptists are the last religious group I would think of doing such.
As for the sexual assaults, Baptists are hitting it out of the ball park! Disgusting and unsettling. Who is next to be exposed?

They had been discussing with him how to create religions in their science fiction worlds, and were both appalled when Hubbard announced he was going to use this knowledge to create his own religion and get rich.

Oh, yeah. Infamous quote from litfan oral history:

“Writing for a penny a word is stupid. If you want to make a million dollars, Start Your Own Religion!”
— L Ron Hubbard, speaking at a late Forties WorldCon

it seems beyond freakishly weird and wrong that anyone thought it was a good idea to have their own image in a stained glass window in a place of worship

It’s my understanding that Dorothy Patterson came up with the unusual idea and that Dr. Patterson blessed it. It would be extremely tough trying to worship with that cast of characters looming over you. Some are nice folks, but none are saints. I wonder if any of the CR elites turned them down when they were informed they would be immortalized as an icon on a chapel window … that would have been the right thing to do.

It really is a place of worship. But one has to question who/what is worshipped there.

I hope Mohler doesn’t get any ideas to do something similar at Southern Seminary. Those windows would portray heroes of the Calvinist Resurgence. The chapel would be adorned with the likenesses of the “Fab 4” (Mohler, Dever, Duncan, and Mahaney), along with other notable New Calvinist leaders: Piper, MacArthur, Chandler, Platt, DeYoung, and perhaps even the bad boy himself … Driscoll. And, of course, a huge window of J.C. as you walk into the chapel (John Calvin, not Jesus Christ). I shudder when I think about that possibility.

What a load. I know the parties named in the petition. It’s weird to see so many eager to jump on a good man without any evidence. Just made up stuff like “We know his name has long been surrounded with whispers of impropriety.” That’s such a lie. I’m amazed at how many of you eat this stuff up.

Gus wrote:
Being right about Hubbard does not in any way make what MZB did to her (and other) kids.
I was NOT in any way advocating such a thing. I don’t understand why you seem to think I might be, why this comment was necessary.

Why cannot both Elron be a con man AND MZB be a monster?
Does one being true HAVE to make the other false?

What a load. I know the parties named in the petition. It’s weird to see so many eager to jump on a good man without any evidence.

Kates,
Every time TWW (and other watchblogs) expose some perv or abuser in high places, they get flooded with Truth Squads, PR spokesholes, brown-nosers, and general trolls saying exactly the same thing about all blasphemers of their LORD(TM).

Actually, most of us are sick to death of this stuff, Kates. The church is becoming a byword and reproach because of stuff like this. The precious name of Jesus is trampled under foot when Christian celebrities fall.

WASHINGTON — A fundamentalist Baptist leader who was President Bush’s choice to head the Office of Government Ethics may be eliminated from consideration because of unspecified ethics problems uncovered by an FBI background check, Administration officials confirmed Thursday.

Kates wrote:
I’m amazed at how many of you eat this stuff up.
Actually, most of us are sick to death of this stuff, Kates. The church is becoming a byword and reproach because of stuff like this. The precious name of Jesus is trampled under foot when Christian celebrities fall.

Ever get the feeling that conservatives are not really all that “conservative,” because it becomes a point of pride for the sake of itself, and it consumes itself in meaningless babble? Conservatives would be a little uncomfortable with that stained glass excess at SWBTS. They also wouldn’t glorify mere mortals since the ultimate judgment is God’s hands. If Judge Pressler did what he did, then they would pray that justice be done. I don’t know Mr. Pressler. I just know he was glorified (could have been a “praise or heil Pressler”) when he was sitting in an over the top “conservative” church I attended years ago. Icons have no place in a church, in my opinion.

Attention

We are undergoing some remodeling. If things look very odd, just come back in a few minutes and they will likely be better. GBTC Really. 🙂

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Over the next week or so we’ll be shoring up some deferred maintenance. So things will be messy. Just walk around the scaffolding and tarps laid out on the floors. And please don’t touch the walls. They may have wet paint on them.